A Good Move

Sue Anderson didn’t think anything could match the scenery of her childhood in South Africa until she arrived in Morbihan. She tells Catriona Burns how she and her family found their perfect home in the Breton countryside.

- Catriona Burns

When the economic recession started to hit in 2007, many people panicked at the prospect of an unstable future. But Sue and Steve Anderson decided to put a positive spin on things, treating it as an opportunity to take a chance at trying something new. So as doom and gloom descended in the UK, Sue and Steve opted to set off full of hope and excitement, with their then six-year-old daughter, Maxine, her school books and a mobile caravan in search of adventure and a new life in France.

“We knew a worldwide recession was on the way, where there would be no job security, so there was no guarantee that our existing life would continue,” Sue explains. “Also, we had got to a stage in our lives when we wanted to do something totally different. We wanted a breath of fresh air, and so we decided to step off into the unknown.”

Their list of possible destinations had included Italy and Spain but once they had weighed up France’s strengths in terms of culture, healthcare and education, their search became more focused, with a wish- list full of specifics reminiscent of Sue’s childhood in South Africa.

“I had been spoilt by growing up in Cape Town, so nothing felt right,” Sue says of her hard-to-please streak before adding, “until we arrived in Morbihan. It’s different to Cape Town but the echoes of my childhood were everywhere from the windswept beach and the white houses perched on cliffs to the verdant green forests and the love of music and all the festivities.”